Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20, from Northern Ireland, and Melissa Reid, 19, from Scotland, claim they were ordered at gunpoint by Colombian gangsters to smuggle an estimated £1.5 worth of cocaine out of the South American country.

Mr and Mrs Reid told the Daily Mail they were preparing to fly out to Peru to see their daughter, who turns 20 on Friday, and the newspaper claims Ms McCollum Connolly's parents are also making travel arrangements.

William Reid, 53, told the paper: "From what her friends and Melissa have been able to tell us, she was introduced to a group of men who she socialised with and this escalated to her being forced to carry out this journey.

"They came into her flat and told her to pack a bag. She didn't know where she was going. My daughter would 100% not have gone willingly. This is completely out of character. She was coerced into it."

Melissa Reid, one of two women caught with £1.5 million worth of cocaine in Peru has said they were robbed of their passports and mobile phones and followed by members of a violent drugs cartel on board flights from Spain.

They took all power away from us and controlled us to the point where we would have done anything to make sure we didn’t die.

We never knew until we saw the drugs what it was we were expected to take back. We had thought it was either money, guns or drugs but they never told us until the night before we flew back to Lima.

We were held up in a dingy room and they placed the drugs in front of us. The men, all South American, told us to wrap the drugs up tightly in clothes to avoid being detected.

We were both incredibly frightened and so at that point they threatened us again with our lives to make sure we went through with it.

The Archbishop of Lima Sean Walsh, who yesterday met the British and Irish women accused of drug smuggling in Peru, told ITV News he believed the pair's defence would be that "they were coerced into doing this, instead of doing it wilfully".

He said Melissa Reid, 19, and Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20, who are accused of smuggling cocaine worth an estimated £1.5 million, were "being well-treated".

The Irish-American Archbishop said the women were "a little weepy" when they prayed together.